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REVIEWER MEETS REVIEWED

SEMINAR SERIES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM'S ANTHROPOLOGY LIBRARY AND RESEARCH CENTRE

A Jewish Guide in the Holy Land

Thursday 17 May at 2.00 pm

Anthropology Library and Research Centre, British Museum

THIS IS A FREE EVENT

The British Museum’s Anthropology Library and Research Centre, in conjunction with the Royal Anthropological Institute, is pleased to present ‘Reviewer meets Reviewed’, a discussion between Prof Jackie Feldman, author of A Jewish Guide in the Holy Land: How Christian Pilgrims Made Me Israeli, and Prof Tom Selwyn, who reviewed the book for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.

For many Evangelical Christians, a trip to the Holy Land is an integral part of practising their faith. Arriving in groups, most of these pilgrims are guided by Jewish Israeli tour guides. For more than thirty years, Jackie Feldman—born into an Orthodox Jewish family in New York, now an Israeli citizen, scholar, and licensed guide—has been leading tours, interpreting Biblical landscapes, and fielding questions about religion and current politics. In this book, he draws on pilgrimage and tourism studies, his own experiences, and interviews with other guides, Palestinian drivers and travel agents, and Christian pastors to examine the complex interactions through which guides and tourists "co-produce" the Bible Land. He uncovers the implicit politics of travel brochures and religious souvenirs. Feldman asks what it means when Jewish-Israeli guides get caught up in their own performances or participate in Christian rituals, and reflects on how his interactions with Christian tourists have changed his understanding of himself and his views of religion.